Under the Dome

  "Yes."

  Julia reached over for her discarded pants and pulled the phone off her belt. She called COX and handed the phone to Barbie, who started talking almost at once. Cox must have answered on the first ring.

  "Hello, Colonel. It's Barbie. I'm out. I'm going to take a chance and tell you our location. It's Black Ridge. The old McCoy orchard. Do you have that on your ... you do. Of course you do. And you have satellite images of the town, right?"

  He listened, then asked Cox if the images showed a horseshoe of light encircling the ridge and ending at the TR-90 border. Cox replied in the negative, and then, judging from the way Barbie was listening, asked for details.

  "Not now," Barbie said. "Right now I need you to do something for me, Jim, and the sooner the better. You'll need a couple of Chinooks."

  He explained what he wanted. Cox listened, then replied.

  "I can't go into it right now," Barbie said, "and it probably wouldn't make a lot of sense if I did. Just take it from me that some very dinky-dau shit is going on in here, and I believe that worse is on the way. Maybe not until Halloween, if we're lucky. But I don't think we're going to be lucky."

  16

  While Barbie was speaking with Colonel James Cox, Andy Sanders was sitting against the side of the supply building behind WCIK, looking up at the abnormal stars. He was high as a kite, happy as a clam, cool as a cucumber, other similes may apply. Yet there was a deep sadness--oddly tranquil, almost comforting--running beneath, like a powerful underground river. He had never had a premonition in his whole prosy, practical, workaday life. But he was having one now. This was his last night on earth. When the bitter men came, he and Chef Bushey would go. It was simple, and not really all that bad.

  "I was in the bonus round, anyway," he said. "Have been ever since I almost took those pills."

  "What's that, Sanders?" Chef came strolling along the path from the rear of the station, shining a flashlight beam just ahead of his bare feet. The froggy pajama pants still clung precariously to the bony wings of his hips, but something new had been added: a large white cross. It was tied around his neck on a rawhide loop. Slung over his shoulder was GOD'S WARRIOR. Two grenades swung from the stock on another length of rawhide. In the hand not holding the flashlight, he carried the garage door opener.

  "Nothing, Chef," Andy said. "I was just talking to myself. Seems like I'm the only one who listens these days."

  "That's bullshit, Sanders. Utter and complete bullshit-aroonie. God listens. He's tapped into souls the way the FBI's tapped into phones. I listen too."

  The beauty of this--and the comfort--made gratitude well up in Andy's heart. He offered the bong. "Hit this shit. It'll get your boiler lit."

  Chef uttered a hoarse laugh, took a deep drag on the glasspipe, held the smoke in, then coughed it out. "Bazoom!" he said. "God's power! Power by the hour, Sanders!"

  "Got that right," Andy agreed. It was what Dodee always said, and at the thought of her, his heart broke all over again. He wiped his eyes absently. "Where did you get the cross?"

  Chef pointed the flashlight toward the radio station. "Coggins has got an office in there. The cross was in his desk. The top drawer was locked, but I forced it open. You know what else was in there, Sanders? Some of the skankiest jerk-off material I have ever seen."

  "Kids?" Andy asked. He wouldn't be surprised. When the devil got a preacher, he was apt to fall low, indeed. Low enough to put on a tophat and crawl under a rattlesnake.

  "Worse, Sanders." He lowered his voice. "Orientals."

  Chef picked up Andy's AK-47, which had been lying across Andy's thighs. He shone the light on the stock, where Andy had carefully printed CLAUDETTE with one of the radio station's Magic Markers.

  "My wife," Andy said. "She was the first Dome casualty."

  Chef gripped him by the shoulder. "You're a good man to remember her, Sanders. I'm glad God brought us together."

  "Me too." Andy took back the bong. "Me too, Chef."

  "You know what's apt to happen tomorrow, don't you?"

  Andy gripped CLAUDETTE's stock. It was answer enough.

  "They'll most likely be wearing body armor, so if we have to go to war, aim for the head. No single-shot stuff; just hose em down. And if it looks like they're going to overrun us ... you know what comes next, right?"

  "Right."

  "To the end, Sanders?" Chef raised the garage door opener in front of his face and shone the flashlight on it.

  "To the end," Andy agreed. He touched the door opener with CLAUDETTE's muzzle.

  17

  Ollie Dinsmore snapped awake from a bad dream, knowing something was wrong. He lay in bed, looking at the wan and somehow dirty first light peeping through the window, trying to persuade himself that it was just the dream, some nasty nightmare he couldn't quite recall. Fire and shouting was all he could remember.

  Not shouting. Screaming.

  His cheap alarm clock was ticking away on the little table beside his bed. He grabbed it. Quarter of six and no sound of his father moving around in the kitchen. More telling, no smell of coffee. His father was always up and dressed by five fifteen at the very latest ("Cows won't wait" was Alden Dinsmore's favorite scripture), and there was always coffee brewing by five thirty.

  Not this morning.

  Ollie got up and pulled on yesterday's jeans. "Dad?"

  No answer. Nothing but the tick of the clock, and--distant--the lowing of one disaffected bossy. Dread settled over the boy. He told himself there was no reason for it, that his family--all together and perfectly happy only a week ago--had sustained all the tragedies God would allow, at least for awhile. He told himself, but himself didn't believe it.

  "Daddy?"

  The generator out back was still running and he could see the green digital readouts on both the stove and the microwave when he went into the kitchen, but the Mr. Coffee stood dark and empty. The living room was empty, too. His father had been watching TV when Ollie turned in last night, and it was still on, although muted. Some crooked-looking guy was demonstrating the new and improved ShamWow. "You're spending forty bucks a month on paper towels and throwing your money away," the crooked-looking guy said from that other world where such things might matter.

  He's out feeding the cows, that's all.

  Except wouldn't he have turned off the TV to save electricity? They had a big tank of propane, but it would only last so long.

  "Dad?"

  Still no answer. Ollie crossed to the window and looked out at the barn. No one there. With increasing trepidation, he went down the back hall to his parents' room, steeling himself to knock, but there was no need. The door was open. The big double bed was messy (his father's eye for mess seemed to fall blind once he stepped out of the barn) but empty. Ollie started to turn away, then saw something that scared him. A wedding portrait of Alden and Shelley had hung on the wall in here for as long as Ollie could remember. Now it was gone, with only a brighter square of wallpaper to mark where it had been.

  That's nothing to be scared of.

  But it was.

  Ollie continued on down the hall. There was one more door, and this one, which had stood open for the last year, was now closed. Something yellow had been tacked to it. A note. Even before he was close enough to read it, Ollie recognized his father's handwriting. He should have; there had been enough notes in that big scrawl waiting for him and Rory when they came home from school, and they always ended the same way.

  Sweep the barn, then go play. Weed the tomatoes and beans, then go play. Take in your mother's washing, and mind you don't drag it in the mud. Then go play.

  Playtime's over, Ollie thought dismally.

  But then a hopeful thought occurred to him: maybe he was dreaming. Wasn't it possible? After his brother's death by ricochet and his mother's suicide, why wouldn't he dream of waking to an empty house?

  The cow lowed again, and even that was like a sound heard in a dream.

  The room behind the door with the note on it h
ad been Grampy Tom's. Suffering the slow misery of congestive heart failure, he had come to live with them when he could no longer do for himself. For a while he'd been able to hobble as far as the kitchen to take meals with the family, but in the end he'd been bedridden, first with a plastic thingie jammed up his nose--it was called a candelabra, or something like that--and then with a plastic mask over his face most of the time. Rory once said he looked like the world's oldest astronaut, and Mom had smacked his face for him.

  At the end they had all taken turns changing his oxygen tanks, and one night Mom found him dead on the floor, as if he'd been trying to get up and had died of it. She screamed for Alden, who came, looked, listened to the old man's chest, then turned off the oxy. Shelley Dinsmore began to cry. Since then, the room had mostly been closed.

  Sorry was what the note on the door said. Go to town Ollie. The Morgans or Dentons or Rev Libby will take you in.

  Ollie looked at the note for a long time, then turned the knob with a hand that didn't seem to be his own, hoping it wouldn't be messy.

  It wasn't. His father lay on Grampy's bed with his hands laced together on his chest. His hair was combed the way he combed it when he was going to town. He was holding the wedding picture. One of Grampy's old green oxygen tanks still stood in the corner; Alden had hung his Red Sox cap, the one that said WORLD SERIES CHAMPS, over the valve.

  Ollie shook his father's shoulder. He could smell booze, and for a few seconds hope (always stubborn, sometimes hateful) lived in his heart again. Maybe he was only drunk.

  "Dad? Daddy? Wake up!"

  Ollie could feel no breath against his cheek, and now saw that his father's eyes weren't completely closed; little crescents of white peeped out between the upper and lower lids. There was a smell of what his mother called eau de pee.

  His father had combed his hair, but as he lay dying he had, like his late wife, pissed his pants. Ollie wondered if knowing that might happen would have stopped him.

  He backed slowly away from the bed. Now that he wanted to feel like he was having a bad dream, he didn't. He was having a bad reality, and that was something from which you could not wake. His stomach clenched and a column of vile liquid rose up his throat. He ran for the bathroom, where he was confronted by a glare-eyed intruder. He almost screamed before recognizing himself in the mirror over the sink.

  He knelt at the toilet, grasping what he and Rory had called Grampy's crip-rails, and vomited. When it was out of him, he flushed (thanks to the gennie and a good deep well, he could flush), lowered the lid, and sat on it, trembling all over. Beside him, in the sink, were two of Grampy Tom's pill bottles and a bottle of Jack Daniels. All the bottles were empty. Ollie picked up one of the pill bottles. PERCOCET, the label said. He didn't bother with the other one.

  "I'm alone now," he said.

  The Morgans or Dentons or Rev Libby will take you in.

  But he didn't want to be taken in--it sounded like what his mom would have done to a piece of clothing in her sewing room. He had sometimes hated this farm, but he had always loved it more. The farm had him. The farm and the cows and the woodpile. They were his and he was theirs. He knew that just as he knew that Rory would have gone away to have a bright and successful career, first at college and then in some city far from here where he would go to plays and art galleries and things. His kid brother had been smart enough to make something of himself in the big world; Ollie himself might have been smart enough to stay ahead of the bank loans and credit cards, but not much more.

  He decided to go out and feed the cows. He would treat them to double mash, if they would eat it. There might even be a bossy or two who'd want to be milked. If so, he might have a little straight from the teat, as he had when he was a kid.

  After that, he would go as far down the big field as he could, and throw rocks at the Dome until the people started showing up to visit with their relatives. Big doins, his father would have said. But there was no one Ollie wanted to see, except maybe Private Ames from South Cah'lina. He knew that Aunt Lois and Uncle Scooter might come--they lived just over in New Gloucester--but what would he say if they did? Hey Unc, they're all dead but me, thanks for coming?

  No, once the people from outside the Dome started to arrive, he reckoned he'd go up to where Mom was buried and dig a new hole nearby. That would keep him busy, and maybe by the time he went to bed, he'd be able to sleep.

  Grampy Tom's oxygen mask was dangling from the hook on the bathroom door. His mother had carefully washed it clean and hung it there; who knew why. Looking at it, the truth finally crashed down on him, and it was like a piano hitting a marble floor. Ollie clapped his hands over his face and began to rock back and forth on the toilet seat, wailing.

  18

  Linda Everett packed up two cloth grocery sacks' worth of canned stuff, almost put them by the kitchen door, then decided to leave them in the pantry until she and Thurse and the kids were ready to go. When she saw the Thibodeau kid coming up the driveway, she was glad she'd done so. That young man scared the hell out of her, but she would have had much more to fear if he'd seen two bags filled with soup and beans and tuna fish.

  Going somewhere, Mrs. Everett? Let's talk about that.

  The trouble was, of all the new cops Randolph had taken on, Thibodeau was the only one who was smart.

  Why couldn't Rennie have sent Searles?

  Because Melvin Searles was dumb. Elementary, my dear Watson.

  She glanced out the kitchen window into the backyard and saw Thurston pushing Jannie and Alice on the swings. Audrey lay nearby, with her snout on one paw. Judy and Aidan were in the sandbox. Judy had her arm around Aidan and appeared to be comforting him. Linda loved her for that. She hoped she could get Mr. Carter Thibodeau satisfied and on his way before the five people in the backyard even knew he'd been there. She hadn't acted since playing Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire back in junior college, but she was going onstage again this morning. The only good review she wanted was her continued freedom and that of the people out back.

  She hurried through the living room, fixing what she hoped was a suitably anxious look on her face before opening the door. Carter was standing on the WELCOME mat with his fist raised to knock. She had to look up at him; she was five-nine, but he was over half a foot taller.

  "Well, look at you," he said, smiling. "All brighteyed and bushy-tailed, and it's not even seven thirty."

  He did not feel that much like smiling; it hadn't been a productive morning. The preacher lady was gone, the newspaper bitch was gone, her two pet reporters seemed to have disappeared, and so had Rose Twitchell. The restaurant was open and the Wheeler kid was minding the store, but said he had no clue as to where Rose might be. Carter believed him. Anse Wheeler looked like a dog who's forgotten where he buried his favorite bone. Judging by the horrible smells coming from the kitchen, he had no clue when it came to cooking, either. Carter had gone around back, checking for the Sweetbriar van. It was gone. He wasn't surprised.

  After the restaurant he'd checked the department store, hammering first in front, then in back, where some careless clerk had left a bunch of roofing material rolls out for any Light-Finger Harry to steal. Except when you thought about it, who'd bother with roofing material in a town where it no longer rained?

  Carter had thought Everett's house would also be a dry hole, only went there so he could say he'd followed the boss's instructions to the letter, but he had heard kids in the backyard as he walked up the driveway. Also, her van was there. No doubt it was hers; one of those stick-on bubble-lights was sitting on the dash. The boss had said moderate questioning, but since Linda Everett was the only one he could find, Carter thought he might go on the hard side of moderate. Like it or not--and she wouldn't--Everett would have to answer for the ones he hadn't been able to find as well as herself. But before he could open his mouth, she was talking. Not only talking, but taking him by the hand, actually pulling him inside.

  "Have you found him? Please, Carter, is Rusty okay? I
f he's not ..." She let go of his hand. "If he's not, keep your voice down, the kids are out back and I don't want them any more upset than they are already."

  Carter walked past her into the kitchen and peered out through the window over the sink. "What's the hippie doctor doing here?"

  "He brought the kids he's taking care of. Caro brought them to the meeting last night, and ... you know what happened to her."

  This speed-rap babble was the last thing Carter had expected. Maybe she didn't know anything. The fact that she'd been at the meeting last night and was still here this morning certainly argued in favor of the idea. Or maybe she was just trying to keep him off-balance. Making a what-did-you-call-it, preemptive strike. It was possible; she was smart. You only had to look at her to see that. Also sort of pretty, for an older babe.

  "Have you found him? Did Barbara ..." She found it easy to put a catch in her voice. "Did Barbara hurt him? Hurt him and leave him somewhere? You can tell me the truth."

  He turned to her, smiling easily in the diluted light coming in through the window. "You go first."

  "What?"

  "You go first, I said. You tell me the truth."

  "All I know is he's gone." She let her shoulders slump. "And you don't know where. I can see you don't. What if Barbara kills him? What if he's killed him alre--"

  Carter grabbed her, spun her around as he would have spun a partner at a country dance, and hoisted her arm behind her back until her shoulder creaked. It was done with such eerie, liquid speed that she had no idea he meant to do it until it was done.

  He knows! He knows and he's going to hurt me! Hurt me until I tell--His breath was hot in her ear. She could feel his beard-stubble tickling her cheek as he spoke, and it made her break out in shivers.

  "Don't bullshit a bullshitter, Mom." It was little more than a whisper. "You and Wettington have always been tight--hip to hip and tit to tit. You want to tell me you didn't know she was going to break your husband out? That what you're saying?"

  He jerked her arm higher and Linda had to bite her lip to stifle a scream. The kids were right out there, Jannie calling over her shoulder for Thurse to push her higher. If they heard a scream from the house--